


Little Red Flag

by zsra187



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 06:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18794662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zsra187/pseuds/zsra187
Summary: “They have a picture of you!”“So? I’m on Facebook too.”-Beth catches up with her social media, and finds something she didn't expect.





	Little Red Flag

**Author's Note:**

> I've recently started watching Good Girls, and become obsessed with these two. Now I'm way too attached and there's no going back, haha.
> 
> Set sometime in Season 1, but before all that shit went down in 1.09.
> 
> Enjoy!

The second she logged in, the little red flag immediately drew her attention. She wondered how long it had been waiting there; she hadn’t had time to do much catching up with her social media in the past few months. Maybe it was Emily Moseley’s mom. The woman was the newly crowned queen bee of the playground, drawing the other moms to her with constant friend requests followed up by backhanded compliments and emotional Ponzi schemes. Whatever it was, Beth didn’t have time for that crap anymore.

It was a dull Thursday evening. The kids were asleep, and Kenny had consented to his bedtime without the usual arguments, switching off his laptop but leaving it plugged in downstairs. Beth eyed it with trepidation, swilling a glass of amber coloured liquid in her hand. She wasn’t missing anything, right?

It had been a while. Truth be told, she didn’t miss it at all. The endless baby pictures, status updates, mundane posts and vacation bragging... she steeled herself for the onslaught as she typed in her password and hit the button - Log in.

‘Welcome back Beth! It’s been a while, so we’ll need to familiarise you with our new privacy policy’. The big blue box at the top of her newsfeed was unavoidable, but that wasn’t what called out to her. Instead, it was the flash of red at the top corner of the screen which drew her eye. What was it? Her fingers hovered over the mouse pad while her mind whirred. Some of the other moms had stayed in contact for the first month or so after her unexplained absence from their scene, but gradually their well-meaning phone calls and surprise drop-ins had tailed off. Maybe someone was trying to get her back into the fold? Maybe Ava Meyer’s mom had tagged her in one of those ridiculous Facebook memes that she loved so much. Reluctantly, she clicked on the red flag. Her mouth dropped and her heart jumped into her throat as she read the notification.

You have one new friend request: Rio H.

A tiny picture accompanied the writing, so small she could barely make out any detail. Her fingers swiped furiously across the mouse pad to click on the name, and there it was. His profile picture, in all its glory.

It was black and white, taken from far away. He was sitting on a chair, leaning forward with hands clasped, looking at someone out of frame. Rio. Gang friend, criminal kingpin of the Detroit organised crime network. On Facebook. And he had sent her a friend request. Beth had to blink twice, her mind numb with incredulity. It seemed ridiculous. A nervous laugh escaped her lips, her hand shaking. It was ridiculous.

He said once that he was on Facebook, his voice simmering with cool confidence despite her concerns about the F.B.I. watching them. Beth thought it was a joke. Clearly, it was not.

The thought of it made her laugh. The utter bravado of it all. She thought organised crime gangs were supposed to be hidden, squirreling away their dark dealings in secret, but there he was for the whole world to see. Even his Timeline picture - a dark, panoramic shot of night time Detroit - screamed the kind of swaggering self-assurance she had come to associate with him, as if to say 'Look at me. I own all of this.'

Her eyes scanned the rest of the page greedily, desperate for any shred of information about his life it might reveal, her disappointment mounting when she realised that his public profile was on total lockdown. There were no other photographs to be pored over, no shared interests, and no (she realised with a jump, her heart pounding) relationship status. There wasn’t even a list of his friends she could nosy through. Just one piece of information that she already knew. From: Detroit, Michigan.

Rio H. H? First initial of his last name. It could be anything, that didn't tell her much. She went back to his profile picture, opening it up full screen. Alone, with no chance of being caught staring, she realised with a thrill that she had as much time to study him as she wanted. His face was impassive, not smiling. He looked deep in thought about something, full lips slightly parted. Yes, there was no denying it. He was gorgeous. 'Smoking hot' as Annie had once put it, 'in a kind of dangerous, drug cartel, shoot you in the head and dissolve your body in a vat of acid way.' But it was more than that. It was the way he looked at her, with eyes full of heat. The way he listened intently when she talked. The way he touched her, trusted her, gave her what she asked for, over and over. He was intoxicating. She knew she was addicted.

  
Having mooned over his picture long enough, Beth finally pushed the laptop away from her. It was time for bed, she was exhausted. Nevertheless, her hand hesitated over the touchpad. Should she accept his request? Stupidly, it felt like taking a big step, a confirmation of their relationship in the printed form, visible to friends and family alike (not that Annie had Facebook - sending Beth millions of snapchat selfies a day with 'OMG i can't even #blessed' captions was her accepted social media vehicle of choice). Should she wait before accepting, make him stew a bit further? She wished she knew when he'd sent the request; it could have been weeks, days, or even (Beth cringed) hours. She would never know.

A floorboard creaked above her head. From high above in the girls room she heard a voice calling, 'Mommy?'

Beth took a deep breath and downed the last of her drink. "Screw it." She scrolled the cursor over to the friend request button, and clicked 'Accept'.


End file.
